have had, in all, one bass bar, one diagonal bar, a middle bar with
arch beneath, and the treble cheek bar. The middle bar is the only one
directly crossing the scale, and breaking it. It is strengthened by
feathered ribs, and is fastened by screws to the wooden brace below. The
three bars and diagonal bar, which is also feathered, abut firmly on the
string plate, which is fastened down to the wooden framing by screws.
Since 1862, the wooden wrest-plank has been covered with a plate of
iron, the iron screw-pin plate bent at a right angle in front. The
wrest-pins are screwed into this plate, and again in the wood below.
The agraffes, which take the upward bearings of the strings, are firmly
screwed into this plate. The long harmonic bar of gun metal lies
immediately above the agraffes, and crossing the wrest-plank in its
entire width, serves to keep it, at the bearing line, in position. This
construction is the farthest advance of the English pianoforte.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--WILLIAM ALLEN.]

Almost simultaneously with it has arisen a new development in America,
which, beginning with Conrad Meyer, about 1833, has been advanced by the
Chickerings and Steinways to the well known American and German grand
pianoforte of the present day. It was perfected in America about in
1859, and has been taken up since by the Germans almost universally, and
with very little alteration. Two distinct principles have been developed
and combined--the iron framing in a single casting, and the cross or
overstringing. I will deal with the last first, because it originated in
England and was the invention of Theobald Boehm, the famous improver of
the flute. In Grove's "Dictionary," I have given an approximate date to
his overstringing as 1835, but reference to Boehm's correspondence with
Mr. Walter Broadwood shows me that 1831 was really the time, and
that Boehm employed Gerock and Wolf, of 79 Cornhill, London, musical